Ressurrecting, Us

Today I ruined a first edition book. Water damage in it's comfortable bed in a carefully planned bag in the backseat of my car. What a shame to see a work of history destroyed in a single summer morning's time. So immobile in a place thought to be safe, and it was faded away--pages died red from the sun, withered and waved like old sagging skin. I'll have to replace it; it was my father's book--how he loves them--his temporary escapes to somewhere Other. It'll be forgotten soon enough on a mildewing shelf while its replacement stands dusty and erect.

***

The packing is hard, and the sky is opening up with lead-drop rain. My truck is stuffed to the top with boxes and clothes, a whole big enough for me to see the tiniest reflection of traffic in my review mirror.

We are moving to Baltimore for the summer. Dan has an internship with the Department of Defence, and we've decided a new place would be good for us.

In Cumberland, MD, we stop for the night. We're both tired and sore. We walk the dogs and our suitcases into a cheap hotel room at the Red Roof Inn. The room smells of cigarettes and impersonal stale sheets.

Dan's dad sent us a bottle of homemade plum wine along. We pour some into Dixie cups and drink slowly. It burns because it was the bottom of the barrel, but it's so sweet we can't resist polishing off the bottle. A little drunk and tired, we fall into the bed too exhausted to soil the sheets.

***

The next day when we reach our new townhouse with the three-month lease, we bring in the necessities and the few boxes that had filled my small SUV. They are all we have to sit on. There is no furniture and that night we sleep on the floor on sheets and two thin hospital blankets.

***

It's four days before departure. I can't say I'll miss this place, though it's been kind to us. It felt more like a hotel room than a home. My suitcases never got unpacked, and several things never left their boxes. Makes the packing easier I suppose.

Two nights ago someone got stabbed and died a few doors down. We saw the fighting but kept our heads inside the door. The week before that some deadbeat dad beat up his girlfriend's kid purple. He beat her bloody. The cops came and busted in the door--took him away.

Packing shit in boxes. I'd like to say it's organized but it's not. As a girl I kept the things I loved neat: Barbie's shoes in one box, clothes in another, dresses hung in her revolving organized closet by pink hangers branded with a "B". Now it's just a matter of getting it to the new place.

It's hideous--the new place. The foundation is crooked, so all the doorways are slanted, and I can reach up and touch the ceiling easily with the balls of my fingers. The shutters are sour apple green and the door eggplant purple. It's in a secluded historical town where I can think away from neighboors pounding on their boyfriends next door. (He was locked out the house by her today. He went to the car and smoked a joint.) And there if I don't want to, I don't have to clean up the dog shit while it's still hot.

***

The animal hospital smells of cat piss. I'm here to pick up Plato, our other dog, stitches removed from nuturing surgery. Stranger's discarded love lazes about the corners and surfaces of the dull blue building. Misfit cats eye me from their perches. How many they've seen in and gone, no love for them--the one's left behind scarred, lumpy, deformed. Their flanks whisper liplessly that once they too had a opening in this world. Safe. Enough.

A black cat--pond scum eyes piercing me--cleans its fur. One ear is notched, front claws removed. It pads over to me begging for a scratch.

I'm allergic to cats. They make me itch and sneeze. I turn away. No, Kittie, I think, I will not love you.

***

Strange how love turns over and leaves us dull sometimes. It's not always biting. The simplest moments aren't always filled with appreciation and deep down I think we all know that. There is no background music to make moments more happy, more sad, more full of--well full of--something. We're not sure what to feel. But these moments are not to be overlooked. That would be the mistake. Maybe I put too much weight in the smaller things, and tend to overlook the big ones.

And. The large ones, I think they are resurrected by the smaller ones. Like when Dan purposed to me on sandy knees at the beach we both loved to wet our feet in and scour for sea glass. He said he had found a piece, but it was a ring--his eyes bluer than the water coming off the tide. And the smaller moment: I gave it back a year later, not ready to fill the expectations I thought had been layed down when we were girls.

***

"Resurrection Fern"

By Iron&Wine

In our days, we will live

Like our ghosts will live

Pitching glass at the cornfield crows and folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road

We'll keep everything

Grandma's gun and the black bear claw that took her dog

And when sister Lowery says Amen, we won't hear anything

The ten-car train will take that word, that fledgling bird

And the fallen house across the way

It'll keep everything

The baby's breath, our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire

Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire

All the more pair of under water pearls

Than the oak tree and its ressurection fern

In our days we will say what our ghosts will say

We gave the world what we saw fit and what'd we get
Like stubborn boys with big green eyes

We'll see everything

In the timid shade of the autumn leaves and the buzzards wings

And we'll undress by the ashes of the fire

Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire

All the more pair of under water pearls

Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern